A collaboration workspace (or simply “workspace”) includes a network-based portal environment that integrates a number of collaboration tools (i.e. discussion, calendar & mail integration, instant messaging) with other functional components (i.e. document management, project management) to improve collaboration among users. A collaboration workspace maintains associated users, i.e. “members” of the workspace, and the permitted access of those users. For instance, some members will only have access to a limited portion of a number of integrated collaboration tools.
A workspace brings several elements together into one homogenous context: users; collaboration tools and components (i.e. components offering business functionalities provided by some applications); and access permissions of the users to the tools and components and their related content. Templates can be defined for creating workspaces. The templates contain most of the technical details, which can be used by end users to easily create a workspace. Templates can be used both for the creation of workspaces as well as one or more of a workspace's components.
In any given organization, many collaboration workspaces can be created for different purposes. For instance, a workspace can represent an organizational group, a project, an entire department, or just a specific work area of the organization. In general, those workspaces are decoupled, e.g. they can exist without the knowledge of other workspaces.